March 24, 2009

My sweet Ashlyn turns 15 years old today. Hard to believe, and even harder for a Dad to accept. I have been doing pretty well ignoring the fact that Shelby is 18, but Ashlyn growing older, now eligible for a Learners Permit, is a pretty strong reminder that my girls are not little girls anymore. They will have their own lives that won’t involve me all that much, and my fragile, over-protective bubble will soon burst. Every parent has to deal with these issues at some point or another…but they are not me, and I do not deal well.

Losing control isn’t easy for a control freak. Each day my kids get older, and I see their eyes open wider to the life before them and the essential stupidity of the old man at home. They would not say that, but I can see glimmers of it in their eyes. I can’t argue. They would most likely win.

Fortunately, I have really good kids. Kinder, smarter and more talented than I was at that age. Bigger hearts and better people than I am now. I'm not sure how that happened, because I’m pretty sure I’m not THAT good a parent (maybe Connie had to work extra hard to make up for my deficiencies). It’s worth repeating: they are really good kids.

All three kids are very different. Shelby is calm, stable…the firm foundation. She has always been older and wiser than her years. Taylor is cursed with my questioning nature. She’s the spoon that stirs the pot, keeping all the ingredients of our family mixed together. Ashlyn, a middle child like me, is the sensitive heart. She can get angry and frustrated, but her heart melts quickly for others.

An Ashlyn story: When Ashlyn was a toddler, she did not like to go to bed. She was so full of energy that she had to run it all out before collapsing into sleep. This did not always happen by 8:30pm. In fact, this never happened by 8:30pm. Being good parents who had read books on being good parents, we set a scheduled bedtime and expected Ashlyn to adhere to it. Ashlyn had other plans.

Every night, we dutifully tucked Ashlyn in bed, despite her cries that she was “not sleepy.” Within two minutes she would be out of bed, wanting a drink, wanting to watch another episode of “Full House” (oh, how I hated the Tanner family!), wanting to play. She was stubborn…and it was hard to say no because Ashlyn was adorable in her little pink pajamas and her blonde hair and big blue eyes. The first few minutes were a playful tug of war, almost sweet, almost comical. But we were stubborn too…and we insisted she go back to bed…and that’s when the demon Ashlyn would emerge. Screaming and flailing around the room, laying on the floor kicking. It was ugly. It was a little bit scary.

We talked to her doctor. We talked to other parents. We talked to clergy and even considered Exorcism. The doctor said we should close and lock the door. We hadn’t thought of that. It almost seemed abusive, but we were fairly desperate at that point. Of course, our bedroom doors do not lock from the outside (why would you want to lock someone “inside” a bedroom?), so we closed the door and held it with our hands. For the next 54 minutes (yes, I kept count) Ashlyn raged inside that room and slammed against that door. It sounded as if we had trapped a donkey and a rattlesnake in the room, and the donkey was really unhappy about it. Ashlyn was screaming and crying, pleading with us to let her out. Connie and I were crying too, sure that we were psychologically scarring our child (and also a little frightened for our lives).

Eventually, there was silence. We waited longer, fearing a trap, and then quietly tried to open the door. It was not so easy, because Ashlyn had fallen asleep against the door and her tiny, exhausted body lay like a heavy door stop across the threshold. I suggested we leave her there, fearing that we awaken the monster once more, but Connie prevailed and we placed her in her cozy bed, where she curled up with her soft puffalump doll and looked so sweet and angelic that we had to question whether the whole episode had been in our minds. It wasn’t.

We gave up the door idea after a week of nights sitting on the floor outside her room holding the knob while Ashlyn ranted and raved inside. We went back to dealing with her face to screaming face.

This continued for a while until one night I remembered a passage from the book Little Women. As Ashlyn was throwing a tantrum, I knelt on the floor beside her, on her level. I got her attention and asked her to make a fist. She didn’t at first, but I insisted and when she did finally curl her fingers into a tiny little fist, she asked “why?” I told her, “I want you to pull your arm back and hit me as hard as you can.” Ashlyn stopped crying and stood still (something she did not do very often). “I’m not going to hit you Daddy,” she said, sweet Ashlyn taking control of wild Ashlyn. I looked her straight in the eye and told her, “you couldn’t hurt me any worse than you are doing right now, so you might as well hit me.”

A look of realization hit her and her lip began to tremble. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she collapsed into my arms. “I’m sorry Daddy,” she said, “I’m sorry.” She sobbed and I held her, telling her I loved her. I tucked her into bed, kissed her good night and she rolled over and closed her eyes. That was the last night we had a problem with Ashlyn going to bed.

Every child is different. I would not have tried that with Shelby (never would have had to try. Shelby went to bed when she was told). Definitely wouldn’t try that with Taylor. She would have said “my fist is a little small Dad, but I saw a two by four outside…can I hit you with that?” (She’s a proactive problem solver, like her Dad!). If they were all the same, life would be pretty boring.

Happy Birthday, Ashlyn. I hope your sensitive heart is never broken, and that you never lose that smile that warms up every room you enter. I am very proud to be your Dad. I love you, sweetheart!